SESSION 8 AGENDA & SPEAKERS

Ms Sylvia Lopez-Ekra brings 20 years of experience in development, gender, and migration work to the United Nations System. Sylvia first joined the International Organization for Migration (IOM) at its Headquarters in Geneva in 2002 as a project officer working on an initiative striving to mobilise the African diaspora to benefit African development and prosperity. She later led the organization’s gender coordination work for many years, during which she steered the agency’s efforts on gender mainstreaming and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.  In 2014, she was posted in Accra as the Chief of Mission and Country Representative for the IOM offices in Ghana, Benin and Togo. She also served as Ghana's United Nations Resident Coordinator ad interim from December 2018 to May 2020. She was later appointed UN Resident Coordinator in Morocco by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, a role she occupied from August 2020 to July 2022. Ms Ekra is a Cote d’Ivoire and France binational and a trained lawyer. She holds a master’s degree in International Administration, with honours, from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, France. 

Professor Sir David Nabarro is Co-Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation and Professor of Global Health at Imperial College London.  He established the Geneva-based foundation Skills, Systems and Synergies for Sustainable Development (4SD).  

David serves as Special Envoy of the UN World Health Organization on COVID-19 and leads the Food Workstream in the UN Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance.  

David secured his medical qualification in 1974 and has worked internationally in multiple clinical and public health roles. He held positions within the UN System between 1999 and 2017.  

In October 2018, David received the World Food Prize together with Lawrence Haddad for their leadership for better nutrition. 

David was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1992 and Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2023 

Dr Fatima Al-Hassan Al-Taher is a highly accomplished food security and nutrition expert. She earned her bachelor's degree in the Faculty of Agriculture and a master's degree in Agricultural Economics and Food Security, followed by a PhD in food security and nutrition. 

Throughout her career, she has held various senior positions, including working for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 

in the Food Security Department and serving as the head of the food security and nutrition group at the IGAD organisation. She conducted numerous food and nutrition security studies and contributed to several working papers. Her expertise and dedication to improving food security and nutrition have allowed her to build strong relationships with national, regional, and international food security entities. She is also an expert in livelihoods and participates in developing the livelihood profile in her country. 

She is the Secretary General of the Technical Secretariat for Food Security and the Government lead for Sudan's food security and livelihood sector. 

Alwin Kopse is head of the International Affairs & Food Systems of the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG). He was appointed Deputy Assistant Director-General of (FOAG) in October 2018. He is also associate head of the Directorate for Markets & Internaitonal Affairs. Since 2016 Alwin has been co-leading the Sustainable Food Systems Programme of the One Planet Network (formerly known as the 10Year Framework of Programmes for Sustainable Consumption and Production), an initiative of the UN established at the Rio +20 Conference in 2012. Alwin Kopse holds a MLaw of the University of Berne and an MSc in Public Policy and Management of the University of London (School of Oriental and African Studies). Before joining the FOAG in 2015, he was founding director of a consultancy firm in strategy development, sustainable development and change management. Before that, he held leadership positions at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and in various organizations in civil society, the industry and in the public sector. 

In 1998, after studying law, Mr Hoppe first became legal counsel at the German Patent and Trademark Office, then in 2002 at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). In BMZ, he held various positions, as a policy advisor on environmental protection in China, on principles and procedures, as a chief speechwriter and as Head of the Division for Peace and Security, Disaster Risk Management.  

Postings abroad were to the German Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York and the Head of Economic Cooperation and Development at the German Embassy in Hanoi.  

Currently, he is the Head of the Division of Food and Nutrition Security, Global Food Policy, and Fisheries.